Psyche Inspired: Anna Vanderberg

Institution: University of Michigan

Major: Art & Design

Psyche Inspired Class: 2018-2019

Interview with Psyche: Part 3

Anna Vanderberg

March 28, 2019

Major: art & design

Genre/Medium: stop-motion animation

About the work: This is the third and final part of my miniseries in which Chad the host interviews the Psyche spacecraft. My first two pieces were more informational, so for this one I decided to do a more fun take on the situation as my characters bid each other goodbye and Psyche gets to tell the public how much their engagement means to it.

Interview with Psyche: Part 2

Anna Vanderberg

April 2, 2019

Major: art & design

Genre/Medium: stop-motion animation

About the work: This animation, which is a follow-up to my second project, features the Psyche spacecraft once more answering questions. I wanted to make sure that these pieces can stand alone without outside explanation, so I made this animation cover more general aspects of the mission than my last one did. I like the idea of being able to approach a spacecraft and level with it about what it’s doing, so for this one I skipped the middleman and had imaginary TV viewers ask Psyche their questions. I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope my viewers do, too!

Interview with Psyche: Part 1

Anna Vanderberg

March 12, 2019

Major: art & design

Genre/Medium: stop-motion animation

About the work: For this stop-motion animation, my goal was to create a comical-yet-educational situation in which viewers would get to see a character interact with the Psyche spacecraft. I was inspired to use the format of a talk show from all the shows I’ve seen where a bubbly host has a celebrity guest in ostensibly to simply talk about the guest, but truly to promote their latest work. This format allowed me to get a little silly with inserting a large spacecraft into a role humans typically fill while still sharing real facts about the Psyche spacecraft. It’s my hope that this animation will be accessible to children and adults alike, and that anyone who watches this can have a laugh while learning.

Journey to the Beginning of Psyche

Anna Vanderberg

December 3, 2018

Major: art & design

Genre/Medium: stop-motion animation

About the work: For this animation, I experimented with painting by hand. This means that each frame is an individual painting, each painted one over the next on a single sheet of glass and photographed. Since this piece was more experimental for me, I decided to also make my sound effects more experimental. Rather than timing my animation to music or logical sound effects, I created a soundscape made entirely of the sounds of paintbrushes swishing, mimicking the actions I performed when painting. We begin zoomed outside of our galaxy, and rush through the solar system, past Mars, and into the asteroid belt just in time to see an object strike Psyche, stripping it of its rocky mantle. Psyche is alone and unobserved for a time, until the Psyche spacecraft enters the scene.